Daggah

Now does this not describe IC arguments to the T - especially Behe's brand in "Darwin's Black Box?"

It seems that, if one accepts the position that an IC system can't evolve (which I disagree with anyway, but whatever), that the next thing the IC advocates need to do is actually find a system that's IC, or at least a system that can't (yet) be explained from an evolutionary perspective. So, they go out and find a system that they'll call IC. Then they'll argue over it with an evolutionist, and he'll find a possible evolutionary explanation for it. So what happens next? The IC advocate can simply go looking for another system, and the evolutionist will eventually have to explain it. This goes on and on and on, and eventually, because human knowledge is finite, and there's still a great deal to be learned, the IC advocate will most likely stumble onto a system that the evolutionist can't yet explain.

And then the IC advocate will claim victory, by eventually moving the goalposts to a spot where his opponent cannot score. Of course, to claim victory, the IC advocate has to be under the mistaken impression that having an opponent say "I don't know" about how something could have happened is equivalent to his opponent admitting that there is - and never will be - an explanation for it.

DarkDruid

The best analogy for the IC arguement that I've heard goes something like this...

"The odds of winning the lottery are so incedibly astronomical, I could not have won this! Therefor, this winning lottery ticket that I'm holding in my hand is obviously not the winning ticket...."

Kevin Dorner

aka "The God Of The Gap Between The Goalposts."

[ February 03, 2002: Message edited by: Kevin Dorner ]</p>

PopeInTheWoods

Dominik Hasek?

liquid

Irreducible complexity is, in itself, not a bad or flawed idea. Such things do exist - a stone arch being a perfect example, both in artificial and natural structures.

The challenge is to work out how these structures arose. Many IC creationists are of the opinion that these structures cannot arise through gradual evolution, and hence must have been designed at one instance. This follows the arguments of Behe, who wrote the book 'Darwin's black box'. In it, he poses IC as a challenge to evolutionary theory, and presents it as a novel insight. This interpretation is where the fallacy lies. They assume there is no way to incrementally create IC structures.

In actuality, it is neither a challenge or a novel insight, even though IC structures cannot be produced by single-axis darwinian evolution. This argument has been going round for many many years, but until Behe's book the creationist laymen did not take much interest. There are actually several well-known examples of producing IC structures from incremental evolutionary steps.

1) The scaffold (redundancy elimination)

In this instance, a structure is set up with the assistance of another structure, which then disappears, leaving an IC structure.

A perfect example is an arch. It cannot be constructed by itself, because it will fall through. However, when constructed with a scaffold, after the scaffold is removed, it operates perfectly well. However, remove a single piece of the arch, and it cannot work. It is an IC structure.

This is analogous to all sorts of biological systems, chemical as well as structural.

2) Function change

In this case, a component of the system develops for one, non-irreducible reason, and then alters function to one that could not be directly produced.

For example, feathers are theorised to have grown as insulation. They are useless for flight at all sorts of intermediate stages, and confer no flight advantage. However, at a certain point they become viable for perhaps gliding assistance, and evolve away from their original function. Intermediate feathers are useless for what full feathers do, but they are not useless.

3) Functional redundancy

In this case, IC structures are created because a component of the original system is no longer required and is lost or becomes vestigial. This differs from the case above because rather than a function change a function disappears.

4) Parallel direct evolution

Essentially, this means that there is a synchronous development in two components, creating a structure that is IC.

Despite the creationists assumption, it does happen. An analogy would be a house of cards. Two cards fall together to create a triangle. Remove either card and the struture fails. Apparently a nautilus eye provides a biological case for this.

All these methods produce IC structures perfectly easily. A good site expanding on this is
<a href="http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/dave/JTB.html" target="_blank">here</a>

liquid

Not worth any comments? I highly recommed that you make some kind of summary of the reasons why IC structures are actually quite easy to create, because its a point that comes up a lot, and its almost facile to demonstrate the errors.

Daggah

Well yeah, it's very handy. I tossed the link at a really arrogant, abrasive ID-ist and he simply responded "that's a joke, right?" I don't think he read it, but then again, I don't think he reads anything that wasn't written by Behe. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

liquid

Don't actually think that link is at all well written, but it is almost comprehensive, and well referenced. I personally would explain more clearly in my own terms and just use the page as a resource.